Posted by John Admin

For the fourth year running, the Contest Team has brought back its Two Part Riddles Contest over the months of May and June. This year, to make it even easier to remember when riddles will be posted, the Contest Team have started up a Facebook page. If you “like” the page, you will receive updates and reminders on your news feed.

Part One of the contest will take place during May and you are invited to
submit a riddle that relates to a person, place or thing found in the
Harry Potter books. You may submit
up to three riddles of no more than 75 words each and they must be copy-pasted in the body of an
e-mail to [email protected] by 25 May, 2011 at 11:59pm EDT with “2011 Riddle Entries” in the subject line. Please include either a real or Leaky Lounge name to be used for authorship.

The contest team will select the best riddles from the entries to have 10 riddles to post. The team will also write and post riddles to fill in any needs. From these 10 riddles, a new riddle will be posted in the Contest Corner and on the Facebook page each Monday and Friday at 9am EDT during the month of June, for Part Two of the contest.

In June, all answers must be e-mailed with “2011 Riddle # Answer” in the subject line to [email protected] before the next riddle is posted. Please also submit a name (real name or Leaky Lounge name) to be used for tracking and site announcement (if you should win) purposes. Please replace the # with the riddle number (e.g. Riddle 1 Answer, Riddle 2 Answer, etc). Please do not post your answer in any form or way on the Leaky Lounge and Facebook.

All contestants’ riddle entries used in June (this excludes riddles created by the contest team) and all people who submit correct answers for all the riddles will be placed into a drawing for one of three Wizard Wood Wands.

25 Responses to 2011 Two Part Riddles Contest Announced

AbbyWeasley says: Awesome I love riddles!WeenyOwl says: Oh nooooo! Why the word limit? I wrote a fabulous 12-line rhyming riddle months and months ago and have been holding it just for this contest! No fair!kyrstalkris says: That's so cool! But riddles seems hard to write! I'm still going to try because I want to win the wand! Thank you so much MyLeaky for giving me a chance to write a riddle! =]MariaKeis says: I'll never get the hang of it xD .. Hahaha !Valeria-Johanna says: I shouldn't have used up all my riddles on the HP Poetry group! Though they probably weren't hard enough anyway.songbird says: The word limit is the same as it has been for the previous years' contests. It is to ensure that A) the author puts a lot of thought into the entry, B) that the contest staff does not have to read through 150 entries that are half a page long, and C) that it does not give too much information and make the riddle too easy, or to hard by contrast.
For those of you who would like some resources to help you in writing your riddles, http://www.ehow.com/how_2064378_write-riddles.html
and http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/riddle/WriteYourOwnRiddle.pdf
should give you some good ideas to get you started! There are links in the contest corner of the forum. Good luck and most importantly, have fun!!jacket says: Great! this is such a cool contest...Maybe I'll try it out.Miss.Weasley says: gonna try out ;)WON_TWO says: How nice...bellatrix15101 says: Oooooooh........ I think I'll probably be better at solving riddles than writing them..... so I may just let other people do the creative part ;)trumpetgirly545 says: Happy Wizarding independence day everybody!!Giant Squid says: Ohhh its hard to think of riddles! nimbus2010 says: I love this contest!! I entered last year as well, and I hope this continues for a very long time. I was looking forward to it ever since the end of May last year!
Good luck everyone who enters!!Corus says: Riddle contest? Surely not a Tom Riddle contest...!Deanna Malfoy Lovegood says: I love Riddles ;)!Fleur-de- Lily says: Awesome I love riddles!mark707 says: looks like its time for the riddler:PValeria-Johanna says: It's not clear - are we meant to send our answers in with the riddles, or do the judges want their brains teased as well?songbird says: Please send the answer along with the riddle, as well as the name you would want to be known by, should your riddle be used. Good luck!molly43 says: It sounds like funmolly43 says: It sounds like fundobbyzgirl says: I thought this was like a Tom Riddle contest!! loldobbyzgirl says: I thought this was like a Tom Riddle contest!! lolWeenyOwl says: To anyone who is thinking of entering, I would strongly recommend that you visit the Contest Corner in the Leaky Lounge and take a look at the riddles that were used last year. There were a couple that became a bit controversial because some entrants (in the second month, when you try to solve them) thought that there was more than one possible correct answer. It's really important to think very carefully about how you word your riddle. On the one hand it shouldn't be too easy to guess, but on the other, it can't be so vague that more than one answer would fit well.
When the contest moderators make up a riddle, they often use puns or wordplay or other tricky clues that are supposed to help you rule out what might otherwise seem like plausible answers. You can learn a lot from reading past examples, and maybe they will inspire you to try your hand at this fun exercise!mjk says: Just to clarify WeenyOwl's post, it was NOT the riddles contest that had the controversial answer, it was the Memories Contest and that is a different contest with a different form to it. So be sure you look at the past 3 years riddle examples (which is a good thing to do if you need some in deciding how to write your riddle) and not the memories contest. You can find the previous years riddles in the Contest Corner forum of the Leaky Lounge (see write-up for link).
Please read the entire write-up of the contest too. It will answer most of your questions and contains important information. If you have anymore questions, though, please ask. :)
mjk
TLC Competition Team